Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muß man schweigen.

... a University of St. Gallen study that shows stock market traders
display similarities to certified psychopaths. The study... compares decisions made by
27 equity, derivative and forex traders in a computer simulation
against an existing study of 24 psychopaths in high-security hospitals
in Germany. Not only do the traders match their counterparts, but, as Der Speigel [sic] succinctly puts it, the "stockbrokers' behavior is more reckless and manipulative than that of psychopaths."

Using a metaphor to describe the behavior, Noll said the stockbrokers
behaved as though their neighbor had the same car, "and they took after
it with a baseball bat so they could look better themselves."

The researchers were unable to explain this penchant for destruction, they said.

Hold on. The
study compared institutionalized psychopaths to a group of German
traders and found the traders are worse psychopaths, with a "penchant for destruction." Umm, how about the more obvious explanation" they're German. What? Too soon? Hello? Is this thing on?

The preposterousness of my comment is only slightly less than the overall idiocy of this study and the reporting around it. Following a rigorous objective analysis, the fact that the traders were German is a more plausible explanation for their baseball bat smashing behavior than their employment as traders. I realize the institutionalized psychopaths were also German, but the presence of mental illness is itself a greater confounding factor, i.e. in a study of psychopathy, the general order of important factors can be approximated:

With rogue traders all the rage, a Swiss university study found that brokers "behaved more egotistically..." The study's co-author Thomas Noll said, "Naturally one can't characterize the traders as deranged..." Particularly shocking for Noll was the fact that the bankers... Noll said it was as if the stockbrokers realize...

Of course I can't find the study anywhere, which is suspicious, but not
half as suspicious as the reporting. Are they "stock market
traders" or are they stockbrokers? Why did Forbes include the above American Psycho poster? Because he's a psycho? But he's not a trader, he was an investment banker. Do these results extend to everyone in a tie or anyone who deals with securities? How about the baby in the Etrade ad?

German

I'd say this was an example of the media manipulating the study to suit their needs, but it appears the researchers themselves were pretty liberal with the nomenclature and pretty conservative with the N=.

I'm fairly confident that a study of comparing 27 idiots to 24 other idiots done by, apparently, idiots, most likely explicitly done for the mass consumption of more idiots is not a study worth repeating, but you can be sure it will be repeated many, many more times and eventually form the foundation for future research not to mention conventional wisdom for the next 25 years. They don't really care who or why someone is a psycho, so long as you get the hate pointed in the right general direction.

II.

Interesting how you spin it:

Forbes: "The study, authored by MBA students Pascal Scherrer and Thomas Noll"

I like to watch these kinds of videos when I have to get psyched up to wrestle a crocodile or storm a castle.

Though narcissism demands the right to self-identify, narcissists are often unable to do so because they don't know what it is they want to be. Who am I? What are the rules of my identity? So people look for shortcuts, like modeling oneself after another existing character. But the considerably more regressive maneuver is to define yourself in opposition to things. "I can't tell you what I want for dinner," says the toddler, "but I am certain I don't want that. Or that. Or that. And if you put that slop in front of me I swear to God you will wear it."

Now you can go through life floating, letting hate, the Dark Side Of The Force, the easy path, guide your reactions. It seems certain that you have a fully formed identity because of the magnitude of your passions, emotions, and responses, but you can only operate in response, never first, never with commitment or vision. I know the young lady with the mace in her eyes thinks she is driven by love, but that doesn't really come through here, does it? Her hate defines her. "I'm anti-establishment." We get it.

What do the protestors want? Can they articulate it meaningfully, not in platitudes or "people over
profits" or "more fair income redistribution" soundbites? They can't tell you because they don't know. They can,
however, yell at you what they don't like, and the louder they yell it the more they hear it themselves.

Nothing is expected to be accomplished, it is all for branding. The enemy of the day is "Wall Street" but that's not an actual thing, and the cops they are so earnestly hoping will assault them aren't their enemies either, they are proxies for Wall Street which is a proxy for something else that I am going to politely refrain from suggesting is their father. This time they have a camera. None of that matters, so long as they have successfully identified themselves to themselves, a little cover from the incessant bitter winds of existential freedom. Marijuana will take care of the rest.

IV.

The protestors didn't realize they were themselves bit players in someone else's movie, the media's movie, which offers this clip and others like it so that you, the viewer, can easily define yourself by who you hate. "That's what the ratings said you wanted," studio execs say, perplexed. "Were we wrong?" No, no, you were right. Carry on.

If I hate the protestors, I'm on Wall Street's side, and vise versa, no further branding, let alone thought, is necessary. And now you have a quick way to decide if you hate me.

[The market is] going to fall pretty hard.... Investors and the big money, the smart money... they don't buy this
rescue plan.... they know the market is toast. They know
the stock market is finished. The Euro, as far as they're concerned,
they don't really care. They're moving their money away to safer assets
like Treasury bonds, 30-year bonds, and the U.S. Dollar. So it's not
going to work.

And:

For most traders,
we don't really care that much how they're going to fix the economy,
how they're going fix the whole situation. Our job is to make money from
it... I
have a confession which is: I go to bed every night and I dream of
another recession. I dream of another moment like this. Why? Because
people don't seem to remember but the ['30s depression] wasn't just about a market crash. There were some people
who were prepared to make money from that crash... It's an opportunity.

This is not the time for wishful thinking that the government is going to sort things out. Governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.

Wow! Did he really say that?

But what did he say that's so shocking, that we haven't heard a million times before? Why is he so believable? One lone trader? What does he know that we don't?

America loves to believe information if it comes by an accent, the "otherness" of the speaker implies they have both impartiality and additional information, hence Nouriel Roubini.

If you're watching it it's for you, and how many of you watch the financial news of the BBC? Zero. And yet we have this clip, submitted for your consideration. Submitted everywhere, from the NYT to Salon, which actually titled its article: "The rogue trader: Crazier than a psychopath." Wow, wildman, not even close. So while the trader is an American he is the "other" speaking to a British audience which we get to spy on; and this information carries greater weight because it is delivered over there, via the BBC, not via Fox News to the evangelicals of Nebraska.

After the initial panic about what he said, the controversy morphed to whether this is a hoax, whether this guy is part of a performance art troupe that tries to impersonate and thus humiliate capitalists. This controversy is wildly besides the point: what's the difference? The entire theatre of this clip is a hoax. What difference does it make if he is an actor or a real trader? How do you think the BBC found this guy in the first place? They don't pre-interview at the BBC? They just wing it?

The media has chosen the easy path because that's what you want, we want to be told that traders et al are psychopaths and cops are
Wall Street heavies and white women are entitled jerks and this guy's a hoax/for real, all so that the rest of us can decide which side of that
invented controversy we are on so that we remember who we think we are. "I hate something!" says the person who is out of ideas. About as nuanced as a mace shot to the face, which happens right in the
the first episode. You can't be subtle when the bitter winds are
blowing.

Comments

Whether the study was done by "idiots" or not, this post has to be one of your worst: Wall Street is not a 'real thing' and the growing income inequality and corruption is an 'invented controversy'. The typical conservative trope-'the protestors just have empty slogans, they don't know what they want'-fails here. Maybe there are some young pups in NYC right now who can't articulate the finer points of finance economics, but that does not make their observations (and those of millions of others) simply a story the media is selling to them.

There was evidence of our gov. being owned by wall st., millionair/billionair, and lots of white old men in "Inside Job".

I think they are all socio paths set up to do our bidding- projection- to create drama.
All our problems could be solved or at the very least moderated to a lower volume- but Americans need DRAMA and lots of it. We also need scapegoats. I think they go hand in hand.
Goes like this "What happened?"
"Oh, I was not paying attention" "There was an eliphant in my living room AND it was drinking my booze?" "Now I have to pay for it's rehab? I'm outraged!!!"

what I find most offensive is that the millennials are screaming for the state to rectify the situation.

Its as if all vestiges of self-reliance have been programmed out of this generation and replaced with extended adolescence complete with manufactured outrage (batteries not included)and "safe" ways to vent.

Oh, for heaven's sake, Derek. There is so much wrong with your comment that it's hard to know where to start.

You want to show us some evidence that the protesters, and the millions of others, know what they're talking about? That they have something positive to say, that they aren't just screeching against those mean meanies? That they really aren't just waving empty slogans?

FYI, I find it amusing that the you seem to think that calling something a "typical conservative trope" will automatically discredit it. Nope, you're actually going to have to provide counter arguments. Shocking, I know. (And yes, before you ask, I am a conservative.)

"Maybe there are some young pups in NYC right now who can't articulate the finer points of finance economics, but that does not make their observations (and those of millions of others) simply a story the media is selling to them."

Nice strawmen, genius.

There is something a little disturbing in the trend I keep seeing in internet comments, that disparages the need for at least some economic knowledge before you start spouting off about, y'know, economic matters. It's just anti-intellectualism.

No one is claiming that you need to know about "the finer points of finance economics" before you make observations. Just that they show some basic background knowledge, and some positive suggestions, that go beyond lashing out incoherently at the status quo.

"...this post has to be one of your worst: Wall Street is not a 'real thing' and the growing income inequality and corruption is an 'invented controversy'."

Firstly, how exactly is Wall St. a "thing", ie, a single entity, as opposed to an umbrella term for many people, businesses and functions?

The problem is not, it and of itself, income inequality. Most people would rather that everyone have a good standard of living with some very rich people with more than everyone else, than to all be equally poor.

The problem is a lack of downward mobility. No one truly believes that today's elites will take their knocks and accept the consequences of their mistakes. (Look at the bailouts.) This is because of the endemic corporatism in American society, with Big Business, Big Government and Big Labor all in bed together to maintain their power.

That's the problem with the protesters. They're not articulating the problem (possibly because they don't actually understand it), they're behaving like the kinds of idiots that ordinary people want to slap, and they have nothing to offer other than screaming slogans.

I agree goodheart. That's what's behind a lot of the societal sicknesses around the country. We've gone from a people with a hope that they could make a better future for ourselves. We didn't like the way things were and we tried to come up to a better way of doing things. We had two things that are gone today -- the ability to delay gratification and an internal locus of control. When you have an external locus of control, life happens TO you, you have very little say in what happens and the grown-ups (or the government) are supposed to come in and fix it like superman. In fact, our culture pretty much frowns upon those who think a problem can be fixed. If you take matters into your own hands rather than going to someone else to fix it, you are a rogue or a cowboy.

I'd be more on board with this if the cop had maced the chicks as a matter of NYPD policy, under direction of senior personnel, and the rest of the cops had been all "yeah that's RIGHT girl you just keep your MOUTH SHUT because there's PLENTY MORE where THAT came from".

What actually happened was that the rest of the cops were all "uh dude what the fuck". And the guy who went all spray-gun-Bob apparently has a history of doing things like that.

I mean, yeah, this is going to be used as a scene in a movie called "WHY YOU SHOULD HATE RICH PEOPLE". But--like "Republicans booed the gay veteran"--there's more to this than a quick description is going to tell you.

Hmmm, Another psych study that means absolutely nothing. Sure, people will take what they want from the study as usual.
I'm fatalistic about the stock market. Years ago, the head of the psychology dept. at Memphis State told me that the stock market is like a Mississippi hog farmer. He fattens the hogs for a while then it's time to take them to the market and with the profits buy some little hogs to fatten.
I'm afraid that I'm just a hog but I dont' believe that the hog slopper is really a sociopath just because s/he kills off the hogs occasionally. Other hogs want to see malice in the situation, but I figure that they just want some bacon.

I'd be more on board with this if the cop had maced the chicks as a matter of NYPD policy, under direction of senior personnel, and the rest of the cops had been all "yeah that's RIGHT girl you just keep your MOUTH SHUT because there's PLENTY MORE where THAT came from".

Or if he had asked, "Which would you say burns more: your hatred of capitalism, or the pint of law enforcement-strength pepper spray I just jetted into your corneas?"

Thank you for sharing those most valuable insights. I'm grateful and believe as a long term reader in your deep sincerity. Honesty is one of the major ingredients of great literature.

Contemporary events. Alone's untold gems, about what he chooses not to tell the reader. It takes some fingerspitzengeføhln not to alienate those with the widespread cognitive dissonance/scientific illiteracy regarding free fall speed buildings. But then again, perhaps those issues aren't very important in the grander scheme of things.

I'm on board with the broader contention ("They don't really care who or why someone is a psycho, so long as you get the hate pointed in the right general direction," focusing on the abstract rather than the concrete which obviates the possibility of real solutions or good character), but this comment isn't about that. I'm an actual stock trader (as in, professionally in charge of actual money, make all the decisions and executions), so here are a few oblique comments from an "insider."

- Based on the video I got the impression he wasn't a particularly successful trader, because his judgments just weren't "thick" enough. Fun fact: his facebook page says he's a speaker and "trainer." In this case, those who can't teach. (Not at all an insult to people who do real teaching.)

- Nonetheless, the basic mentality (barring the Chicken Little/Pollyanna dualism of "we're all screwed" and "buy US Treasuries!") is in keeping with an understanding of what an actual trader does. The body shop doesn't like that people get in wrecks, but they profit from it. This guy is arrogant and self-centered, but he's right that it's not a trader's job to "fix" things for everybody else. We don't want bad things for other people (or at least many of us don't), but we can make a bunch of money off that market crash.

- Incentives are plainly misdirected in many ways in high finance: Swing for the fences if you're young, all reward no risk, risk shifted to the system. Follow the pack if you manage a fund, by approximating others' performance you keep your clients, herd mentality shifts risk to the system. ("Wall St" is a scapegoat in a crash, but we push our brokers for unrealistic performance the rest of the time.) But this video vilifies thinking that should be incentivized: The trader is the critic questioning the consensus, and if he's right he makes lots of money. Critical thinking is exactly what you want to incentivize. You want people finding the winning horse and riding it, because that's how you shift money into the hands of people who will perform best with it.

- Obviously it's just a business pitch, but look at his conclusions: *you* can protect your assets or even make a bunch of money if you think things through and act accordingly. This is hardly the Oliver Stone caricature of some guy trying to steal grandma's pension funds through penny stocks; this is a guy offering advice. And the commentators don't at all respect this; take the blue pill and shut up, they say.

- Some good traders have the ability to predict big crashes. Jesse Livermore knew about 1907 and 1929. Paul Tudor Jones knew about 1987. Etc. We celebrate the people who are so in sync with the flow of our world that they come up with whizz-bang iPads and Nintendo games -- a fortiori, shouldn't we *lionize* those who are in sync with massive economic swings? Put the incentives in the right place.

- FYI, I'm not at all saying that this guy is right that the world economy is definitely screwed (bulls and bears both know he's an idiot), just that they are *deriding* personal initiative, shoving the blue pill down our throats. (I'm not a "red pill" fan either because a shift to the "really real" sounds like a combination of fantasy and conspiracy theory to me, but the blue pill-pushing is still wrong.)

- Is there such a thing as "Wall Street"? Obviously there exist institutions like Goldman Sachs and such, but there are traders everywhere. Great traders are not cloistered in Manhattan, and are a very diverse group because ideas translate into profits. Highly successful funds can be operated out of Peoria and Austin as readily as New York and Greenwich. Your personal financial advisor isn't a puppet in the hands of some coked-up kid with a newly-minted Harvard MBA, nor even the fat bald old white men hatching a new plot to screw you in a boardroom thick with the smoke of brandy-dipped cigars. "Wall Street" is your next door neighbor who finally gets his shot and tries to "help you out" with over-generous terms on your mortgage. (If we're going to elide brokers and trader and investment bankers, we might as well go this far.) "Wall Street" is your dad who thinks an e*trade account is his ticket to beating the market. "Wall Street" is the money you put into that 401(k).

- Insofar as there is or becomes a monolithic "Wall Street," people with the actual trader mentality are the *solution*. When things calcify, they're ready to be smashed by somebody who exercises critical thinking. Whenever "Wall Street" is *wrong*, there's an opportunity to make unbelievable amounts of money by betting against "them." Did the research and found out Enron is lying in its reports? Prepare to make a bunch of money. Not so sure that LTCM is really what it's cracked up to be? Your chance to strike it rich. Incentivize the no-blue-pill mentality, don't go HuffPo on it.

Indeed, people (and their relevant media) constantly need to feign ignorance about their awareness of present financial system's essence — "make more money for money" — so they can continue to masturbate over "revelations" like these.

Like a headline suitable for The Onion: "Folks aghast Wall Street still not for philanthropy"

My man TLP I love your work but this time youre wrong. The flaw here is white women often are entitled and stockbrokers perhaps do exhibit asocial tendencies some even psycopathic, more so than mechanics, teachers

"The body shop doesn't like that people get in wrecks, but they profit from it. This guy is arrogant and self-centered, but he's right that it's not a trader's job to "fix" things for everybody else. We don't want bad things for other people (or at least many of us don't), but we can make a bunch of money off that market crash."

Yeah, but the body shop adds value to situation, i.e. they fix your car while making a profit. Isn't it the case that at least sometimes, even if traders don't want a crash, the way they profit from it actually makes the crash worse? Honest question, I don't know. And I'm not saying that's their job to fix things but I'm not sure the body shop is the best analogy.

To anon, yeah, I have a comment, that article is fucking retarded. What kind of human being could calculate the the mass required to stop a moving train with ~50-60 pound precision in a split second. What the fuck?

You aren't sacrificing a life to stop a train, you are /gambling/ with the life. The utilitarian response here is not necessarily to sacrifice the guy next to you, so the question is completely null.

"Isn't it the case that at least sometimes, even if traders don't want a crash, the way they profit from it actually makes the crash worse?"

Complicated question, so first follow me with the analogy. Most of the time the body shop doesn't make your car actually "good as new," just *functioning* again. Neither body shop nor trader can fix something perfectly; unless they replace the piece on your car it will still be a bit mangled after they hammer it back to full functionality. And of course body shops have a higher success rate, as more traders lose money than body shops fail to fix cars.

But traders do make things "better" in general. (Admittedly, improvement is the goal for a body shop but just a by-product of trading.) I'll give you three examples to try to help that make sense.

One, imagine that everybody thinks Enron is just the best stock ever and keeps buying buying buying. If a trader figures out the accounting problem, he starts selling selling selling, which pushes the price down -- so you don't buy at prices quite as high, and therefore don't lose quite as much money in the end. Sounds simplistic, but forces like this really do keep prices down. It works the same way when he buys a stock that's being unfairly sold off; the price of those sells will be pushed up by his buying, so your prices aren't quite as bad as they would have been.

Two, it is to that trader's advantage to help the news go public once he's established his position -- so the misdeeds don't go unpunished in the end, and a company's victories don't go unnoticed. With enough traders out there digging up dirt, it becomes harder and harder to "cook the books," and that's a good thing. Likewise, with enough traders digging up unrecognized success, a good company with a low stock price may well find a market for its stock, with the end result (hopefully) being that it is in a stable enough financial position to do what it does well, which is also a good thing.

Three, many traders engage in what is called "arbitrage," meaning that they help make markets more efficient. Imagine a hundred years ago stocks traded at different prices in Chicago and New York. It's $40 for the stock in Chicago, $50 in New York. You're overpaying one place, and getting stiffed when you sell in the other. The trader runs a telegraph line between Chicago and New York and starts buying in Chicago and selling in New York, booking a big profit. But in time this happens more and more and the prices are roughly identical in both places. Again a good result: you no longer get stiffed when selling in Chicago, nor do you overpay when buying in New York.

Certainly a trader can cause problems in the market, just as anybody else can. But profitable traders will profit by recognizing those problems and fighting them, because fighting against problems is where the money is. Buying when the price is too low, selling when the price is too high -- financial stability gets shifted from bad to good businesses, and buying and selling becomes less chaotic. Yes, the fact that your profiting from the problem helps the market overall is a mere by-product, but it still happens. At first you take 99% of the profit and the market gets 1% of it, then as the truth comes out that number shifts over time until and the market gets almost 100% of the benefit.

Those are abstract or toy examples, but I hope they help make sense. And basically: yes, a bad trade (or market manipulation) only makes matters worse. That's why you want to incentivize GOOD trades, GOOD decision-making.

I first started seeing the "businessmen are psychopaths/sociopaths" meme online two or three years ago. The way it's propagated is one of those things that makes me wonder if someone's deliberately pushing it from behind the scenes somewhere....

Is there any consistent pattern of using George Soros as an example of a non-pathological finance guy?

Hmmm, I've never seen the meme "businessmen are psychopaths". I suspect you're referring to are the memes related to CEOs and corporations - the idea is that if corporations are people (as the courts have determined they are) then they are psychopaths or sociopathic based upon their behaviour. The other idea (which comes from different sources) is that "more CEOs are sociopaths/have a NPD than in the average population". It's hardly surprising that people with NPDs are highly successful in the corporate world or that the corporate world is shaped by the behaviours and values of those who run it. It doesn't apply to all CEOs or businessmen in general, and I've never actually seen a general "businessmen are psychopaths" meme being promoted.

The first idea was initially presented in the film, The Corporation. The second idea, about the prevalence of NPD in CEOs and people in positions of power in corporations (and how abusive bosses aren't reigned in) is actually something that emerged out of the business world (or at least people working within it) and is discussed in business publications just as much as in the mainstream media.

There are, of course, ways of doing business that are prosocial (meaning they're not anti-social and they add value to society rather than just trying to siphon off value). Prosocial businesses (and business leaders) do things like respect human rights, treat employees like people, respect the environment, contribute to the communities where they operate, and so on. Certainly not all businessmen are sociopaths, it's just advantageous in our current business climate and according to contemporary business values to be one.

"What you think is going on isn't REALLY what's going on," said the Last Psyciatrist with a smug grin on his face.

Jesus fucking Christ TLP, drop the act already. You should know just as well as anyone that politicians and people in the financial world conspired to tank the economy for their own benefit, and that they don't give a flying fuck about how it may affect other people. The simple truth of the matter is that they are greedy, dangerous psychopaths.

What's next, are you going to tell us heliocentrism is bullshit and only you know the truth?

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Most people who participated in the protests were clear about what they wanted. They weren't monolithic, but some themes were obvious to those, unlike you, who actually wanted to know:

* Re-regulate the financial elites that caused the crash.
* Bail out struggling people and small business vs. those who caused the crash.
* Stop talking about "the economy" getting "better or worse" solely based on the performance of the stock market vs. the general material well-being of humanity.

But of course it's really all about their relationships with their dads. Yours is the most ridiculous "profession" that exists. I hope it at least makes you feel like a big man.

You said it yourself: Bad trades make things worse, and most traders are Bad at their jobs. Yet the financial profession continues to prosper and bloat, and the fact most of them are incompetent hasnt stopped anyone. In an ideal world finance would work as you describe it, but the reality seems very far from the ideal.